What are we not seeing?

‘Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.’ So says the scientist, writer, and Native American, Robin Wall Kimmerer. (1)

Kimmerer’s writings express a profoundly contemplative way of being in the world. Her wonderful book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants can be read as an extended reflection on what becomes visible when attention opens into gratitude, humility and love.

For Kimmerer, attention is not detached observation. It is participation in relationship. To give attention to another being, whether a tree, a moss, a bird, or another person, is to receive their presence as gift.

The recognition of the giftedness of presence gives rise to gratitude; gratitude which awakens a sense of responsibility; a sense of responsibility which becomes embodied in taking care, as love.

Learning to see differently

Meditation interrupts our habitual patterns of perceiving. Saying our prayer word, following our breath, we press pause on conceptualising, judging, on seeking to grasp and appropriate everything we encounter.

Kimmerer describes a similar way of relating to what we encounter. The result is that nature ceases to appear as a collection of separate objects ‘out there’ available simply for our use. Trees, plants, animals become living presences with which we exist in relationship.

‘Science polishes the gift of seeing; indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language,’ she says, bringing together her scientific training and indigenous wisdom. (2) If scientific attention is more focused on the particularity of moss, of water, soil and plant life, indigenous attention listens for relationship, for meaning, for responsibility. These two forms of knowing, each a precious gift, are brought into fruitful harmony.

Awakening to what is here

There is a striking parallel here with our practice of meditation, and with its wisdom and healing processes. Meditation does not create divine presence; it helps awaken us to it as that in which we and all things live.

In the same way, Kimmerer’s practice of attention does not manufacture a relationship with nature. It allows us to recognise our relationship, the fundamental relatedness and communion that sustains and holds our life and all life in being. The quality of attention we give changes the way we see. And it can change the way we relate.

We do not breathe alone

When she is in a city and starts to feel separated from the natural world, Kimmerer likes to do a simple breathing practice. Breathing in, she thinks about how she is breathing in the breath of plants.  Breathing out, she thinks about how her breath offers life to plants. ‘That is a super fundamental way to recognise our reciprocity in the living world, that we are not separate,’ she says. (3)

Our simple way of meditation might be described as preparation for this recognition. Saying our prayer word, following our breath, letting go of all that our mind grasps hold of, we hold ourselves open, receptive, ready to receive.

Next time you are walking, or in a garden or park, looking at a tree out of a window, or sitting with a pot plant, you might like to try Kimmerer’s simple practice for reconnecting.

Breathing in, recognise how life is being received.

Breathing out, recognise how life is being returned.

Then rest in the recognition: I do not breathe alone. Life is being given and received.

We do not meditate in order to create a relationship with nature. We meditate in order to become aware of it, to enter it consciously, to learn how to respond to it with love, to care for it.